My Toaster-mate Derek Smart sent me the following email the other day:

I ran across this quote from Dusty Baker in the Daily Herald:

"I'm a firm believer that your fourth year is about your toughest year as a hitter," Baker said. "Your first year or two, you're going on natural ability. They don't know you. One team thinks you're a high-ball hitter. One team thinks you're a low-ball hitter. By the fourth year, everybody knows what you can and cannot hit. Everybody's pitching him now about the same way."

That looks like a statement (fourth year being the toughest for hitters) that begs for some sort of fact-related rebuttal, and naturally, I thought of you. I don't know if the question interests you, but I thought I should toss it your way just in case (I just don't have the brain cells right now).

Well, I didn't have the brain cells either, but, like the Scarecrow, I have an honorary degree of ThD, Doctor in Thinkology. I did some thin'in' like El Kabong and a bunch of fancy ciphering like Jethro Bodine, and I ended up with a pain in the Gulliver, my droogies.

Dusty was just finding a way to either beat up on or find an excuse for the mercurial enigma that is Corey Patterson, the Cubs' sometime starting center fielder. After I started looking into Dusty's oratory, Patterson was actually sent down in the latest twist in Chicago's on-again off-again love affair with the rapidly aging 25-year-old player. It reminds me of the Phils' gaslighting of Marlon Byrd over the past three seasons.

But back to the data. The problem was that unlike Dusty, I can't refer to same fantasy world in which anything is possible. I would be reminded by Lil Joe Morgan that that way leads only to Enron. I have to define my terms, but what's a first year, let alone a fourth year? Very few players begin their careers with 400 plate appearances in their first year. What about a guy who has 250? And what about a guy who misses half a season in his "third" year, whatever that is? It's all so confusing.

I opted for the major-league definition of a rookie, 130 plate appearances. I took batters only (i.e., more plate appearances than innings pitched) and found the season in which they crossed MLB's Mason-Dixon line for rookies. It may have been their first season; it may have been their fifth. But whatever season they attained the number of appearances necessary to no longer be considered a rookie in subsequent seasons, that was their rookie year. The next season was their second year, the next their third, etc. Unscientific perhaps, but whaddya gonna do?

I then took the players' ratios and averaged them (I know) per decade (based on the decade in which their rookie year took place). I found the average ratios for each in the second year, third year, and so.

Below is the rather lengthy table that was the result of the slooshy through the malenky. Come, viddy:

If you were daring enough to Ed Wade through those tulips, you'll notice that not only has the fourth season, not the worst, players actually improved the most generally speaking in their fourth season. The fifth and the second seem the worst. But I won't let facts get in the way of Baker incentivizing and/or chastising a player.